Companies such as Fleetcor provide a credit card that is linked to a particular vehicle or driver and allows the holder to make fuel and in some cases merchandise purchases. The service provided by Fleetcor allows purchases to be monitored as they are made by drivers of a company owning multiple vehicles such as a trucking company. Since each credit card is linked to or associated with a particular vehicle or driver, any transaction made using the credit card, hereafter referred to for convenience as a fuel card, can be related to a particular vehicle. This allows reports to be created for each vehicle showing the amount of fuel purchased, and when and where it was purchased. It allows the information to be viewed on-line and allows the cards to be centrally monitored and controlled. Thus, each card can be customized to provide different limits on when it can be used, the dollar limit, and whether anything other than fuel can be purchased with the card.
Nevertheless fraudulent practices take place. The cards are for instance used to fill up private vehicles or the company vehicle is used for private purposes. In the past the numbers received from the credit card company have been analyzed by various techniques to detect aberrations and possible fraud. Typically the information received from the credit card company will include the fuel amount involved in a particular transaction, the date and time of the transaction and address of the gas station.
However the addresses received from the credit card company for the various gas stations don't always geocode thus leaving the location of the fuelling stop unknown and opening the door to fraud. Even if the location is correctly identified it is not always clear what is happening to the fuel being dispensed, e.g. whether a private vehicle is being filled up during the same transaction. In fact, it is possible that the company vehicle associated with the credit card is not even at the gas station, and that the card is being used by a family member of the driver.
The present invention seeks to address some of these shortcomings in the prior art credit card monitoring system.